Thief of famed Churchill photo sentenced to jail: Canadian media
The "Roaring Lion" portrait of the late British prime minister had been gifted to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa by the late Armenian-born Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh.
Taken by Karsh after the wartime leader addressed the Canadian parliament in 1941, Churchill's scowl becoming a symbol of British defiance in World War II.
In August 2022 hotel staff noticed the photograph, hanging in a reading room next to the main lobby, had been replaced with a forgery, and Ottawa police in 2024 announced they had found the culprit.
According to Canada's public broadcaster CBC, the man, Jeffrey Wood, pleaded guilty to forgery, theft, and trafficking property obtained by crime in March.
He was sentenced to jail for a duration of two years less a day on Monday at an Ottawa courthouse.
CBC reported that Justice Robert Wadden told Wood that he was guilty of stealing a "cultural and historical" portrait that was a "point of national pride."
In 2024, Ottawa police said that with the help of public tips and forensic sleuthing, they had found Wood living just west of Ottawa while the stolen portrait was in Italy.
The portrait had been sold through an auction house in London to a buyer in Italy, both of whom were unaware it was stolen, police said then.
It was returned to the hotel last September.
The image is arguably the most recognized of Churchill and widely circulated, even appearing on the British five pound note.
In an account posted on his official website, Karsh said making the portrait "changed my life."
He had captured Churchill's churlish expression immediately after plucking a cigar out of the British leader's mouth.
"By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me," Karsh said. "It was at that instant that I took the photograph."
© 2025 AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
14 minutes ago
- France 24
Slain UK journalist's book on saving the Amazon published
"I think of him every day," his widow, Alessandra Sampaio, told AFP of her husband, who was shot dead in the Amazon on June 5, 2022 along with Indigenous-rights activist Bruno Pereira. She was in London for the global launch of "How to Save the Amazon", which Phillips, a freelancer for The Guardian and the Washington Post, was researching when he was killed. The double murders triggered an international outcry and drew attention to the lawlessness fuelling the destruction of the world's biggest rainforest. Brazilian federal police have concluded the men were killed because of Pereira's monitoring of poaching and other illegal activities in a remote reach of the Amazon. Three years to the day after the murders, a prosecutor from Amazonas state indicted the suspected mastermind, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement Thursday. So far, several suspects have been charged in the killings. Phillips, who had taken a break from journalism to write his book, was seeking to raise the alarm about the environmental damage and illegal activities plaguing the region. "He died trying to show the world the importance of the Amazon," said Sampaio. Pereira was a former senior official with Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency, and disappeared along with Phillips as they travelled through a remote Indigenous reserve, close to the borders of Colombia and Peru. Their hacked-up bodies were found and identified days later, after an alleged accomplice confessed to burying them. Phillips, 57, was shot in the chest, while Pereira, 41, sustained three gunshot wounds, one of them to the head. They were killed in the northwestern Javari Valley, where drug traffickers, illegal fishermen and hunters, and gold miners operate. "It was his second-to-last trip. One more was left, and he would have finished the book," said Sampaio, adding Phillips had already written the first four chapters. 'Dom's book' After his death, his widow spent months collecting his extensive writings, journals and reams of notes. "He had two or three notebooks from each trip, with dates, places, explaining everything," she said. But she confessed that at times she had to stop as she got "too emotional". Each new chapter has been written by a group of six journalists and writers: Britons Jonathan Watts and Tom Phillips; Americans Andrew Fishman, Stuart Grudgings, and Jon Lee Anderson; and Brazilian Eliane Brum. The book is "dedicated to everyone fighting to protect the rainforest". They all travelled to the region, and interviewed new people following Phillips's trail in a bid to faithfully complete his manuscript. The afterword has been written by Beto Marubo, a leader of the Indigenous Marubo people, with Amazonian activist and writer Helena Palmquist. Sampaio, who lives in Brazil's northeastern Salvador da Bahia region, paid tribute to the "loyal friends" who helped complete the book, which she says is also a tribute to activist Pereira. "There's no way to separate Dom and Bruno. They're there together. It's a message for everyone to understand the importance of the Amazon and its people," she said. Watts, global environment writer with The Guardian, said: "It's more than a tribute to Dom, it is Dom's book." "In this process, I'm always imagining what would Dom think, but it's my imagination," he added. "I'm sad that Dom is not here to see it, but I'm very happy that we are here." The murders threw a spotlight on a long-threatened corner of the planet, and stoked criticism of the policies of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, accused of encouraging the plundering of the rainforest. The book, launched simultaneously in Britain, Brazil and the United States, ends with a plea from Marubo for more people like Phillips and Pereira, who he says wanted to "truly help" save the Amazon.
France 24
5 hours ago
- France 24
Musk accuses Trump of being named in Epstein files as public row worsens
With one tweet linking Donald Trump with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, Elon Musk reignites a long-running conspiracy theory beloved of the US president's far right supporters. The tech billionaire – who exited his role as a top White House advisor just last week – alleged Thursday that the Republican leader is featured in secret government files on rich and powerful former Epstein associates. The Trump administration has acknowledged it is reviewing tens of thousands of documents, videos and investigative material that his "MAGA" movement says will unmask public figures complicit in Epstein's crimes. "Time to drop the really big bomb: (Trump) is in the Epstein files," Musk posted on his social media platform, X, as a growing feud with the president boiled over into a vicious public spat. "That is the real reason they have not been made public." Supporters on the conspiratorial end of Trump's base allege that Epstein's associates had their roles in his crimes covered up by government officials and others. They point the finger at Democrats and Hollywood celebrities, however, not at Trump himself, and no official source has ever confirmed that the president appears in any of the material. Musk did not reveal which files he was talking about, and offered no evidence for his claim. The South African-born tech tycoon, who was Trump's biggest campaign donor to the tune of $300 million, separately claimed the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without his support and accused him of "such ingratitude". He replied "yes" to a post suggesting Trump should be impeached, and blasted Trump's global tariffs for risking a recession. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Thursday called Musk's behavior "an unfortunate episode" adding the Tesla tycoon is "unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted". But the allegation prompted fresh demands for a release of the material – this time from Democrats keen on turning a MAGA conspiracy theory back on its proponents. Epstein died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking. Trump has denied spending time on Little Saint James, the private redoubt in the US Virgin Islands where prosecutors alleged Epstein sex trafficked underage girls. The president said ahead of his election last year that he would have "no problem" releasing files related to Epstein. The administration has made public over 63,000 pages tied to the JFK assassination, but Trump has not fully followed through on the Epstein files pledge. 'Terrific guy' PolitiFact investigated Trump's denials and concluded that the president had flown on Epstein's jet at least seven times, and noted that the pair attended the same parties in the 1990s. But it also said there was no evidence Trump visited Epstein's island. "Terrific guy," Trump, who was Epstein's neighbour in both Florida and New York, said in an early 2000s profile of Epstein. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre – who died by suicide in April, according to her family – filed a lawsuit saying he had flown her to sexual encounters with royals, politicians and others when she was underage. Unsealed court documents offer new details on sex abuse allegations against Jeffrey Epstein 01:12 Thousands of pages of records from the case were released in 2019, and more in 2024, but they offered scant evidence of wrongdoing by famous figures. Lawmakers in the opposition Democrats jumped on Musk's allegation to renew their calls for the release of more detailed files. "I called for the full release of the Epstein Files a month ago because of my suspicion that (Attorney General Pam Bondi) was concealing the files to protect Donald Trump," New York congressman Dan Goldman posted on X. "Now my suspicion has been confirmed." His fellow House Democrat Ted Lieu of California said Musk's accusation had confirmed his own belief that Trump is "all over the Epstein files". "I urge the Department of Justice to release all the Epstein files. What is the Trump Administration hiding?" he said. Tim Miller, a former Republican National Committee spokesman turned fierce Trump critic, echoed the call. "The American people deserve to know if our president is a pedophile," he posted on X.
France 24
7 hours ago
- France 24
Taliban hang up Kalashnikovs to pen memoirs of Afghan war
A flood of books has been written, mostly from a Western perspective, about the war between the US-led forces that invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks until the Taliban's return to power in 2021. But in the years since, a proliferation of writings by Taliban figures -- praising their exploits and the achievements of the "Islamic Emirate" -- is now the reigning narrative in Afghanistan. "No matter what foreigners have written... they have largely ignored the reality of what happened to us and why we were forced to fight," author Khalid Zadran told AFP. A member of the Haqqani network -- long viewed as one of the most dangerous militant factions in Afghanistan -- he now serves as the spokesman for the capital's police force. In his 600-page tome in Pashto published in April, he recounts US incursions in his home province of Khost, his childhood steeped in stories of soldiers' "atrocities", and his desire to join the Taliban in the name of his country's "freedom". "I witnessed horrific stories every day -- mangled bodies on the roadside," he writes in "15 Minutes", a title inspired by a US drone strike he narrowly escaped. Muhajer Farahi, now a deputy information and culture minister, penned his "Memories of Jihad: 20 Years in Occupation" to "state the facts", he said. "America, contrary to its claims, has committed cruel and barbaric acts, destroyed our country with bombs, destroyed infrastructure, and has sown discord and cynicism between nations and tribes," he told AFP from his office in central Kabul. Little attention is paid in either book to the thousands of civilians killed in Taliban attacks -- many of them suicide bombings that entrenched fear across the country for nearly two decades. Farahi insists the Taliban "were cautious in saving civilians and innocent" lives, while criticising fellow Afghans who collaborated with the pro-Western police as a "stain" on the country. Rights groups accuse the current Taliban authorities of widespread abuses -- particularly against women and girls, who the United Nations say are victims of what amounts to "gender apartheid". In his book published in 2023, Farahi claims the Taliban attempted to negotiate -- in vain, he insists -- with the United States over the fate of Osama bin Laden, whose capture or death Washington demanded after his plane hijackers killed around 3,000 people in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, who had been based in Afghanistan, was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011. American 'bloodthirsty dragon' "It was clear... that the Americans had already planned the occupation of Afghanistan," writes Farahi in the English version of his book, which has been translated into five languages. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Afghans thought it would "have nothing to do with our country", he continues, but soon realised that Afghanistan would face "punishment". For 20 years, the war pitted Taliban militants against a US-led coalition of 38 countries supporting the Afghan Republic and its forces. Tens of thousands of Afghans died in the fighting and in Taliban attacks, as did nearly 6,000 foreign soldiers, including 2,400 Americans. For Farahi, the war reflects the West's desire to "impose its culture and ideology on other nations". His disjointed journal mixes battlefield memories with polemical chapters railing against the American "bloodthirsty dragon". The book "reveals the truths that were not told before because the media, especially the Western media, presented a different picture of the war", he said. According to him, the "mujahideen", or holy warriors, despite being far less equipped, were able to rely on their unity and God's aid to achieve victory. New front Only a few of the new wave of Taliban books have been autobiographies, which appeal to an audience seeking to understand the war "from the inside", according to Zadran. His book, initially 2,000 copies in Pashto, sold out quickly and another 1,000 are in the works -- along with a Dari-language version, he said. Many chapters mention Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier held hostage for five years by the Haqqani network. He recounts treks through the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to move him between hideouts, efforts to convert him to Islam and conversations about his girlfriend back in the United States. Both accounts end in 2021, before the transformation of the fighters who moved from remote mountain hideouts to the carpeted offices of the capital. There, their battle has turned diplomatic: the Taliban are now fighting for international recognition of their government. "The war is over now," Farahi said, "and we want good relations with everyone" -- even with the "bloodthirsty dragon".
